Shades of the Heart
by DreamEscape16
Summary: Natasha thinks she has locked up her heart for good, but one evening while sitting outside a cafe in Rome she discovers that no matter how far she runs his heart will always chase after her. Set after the graveyard scene. Post -WS Romangers Two shot.
1. Chapter 1

**Shades of the Heart**

**All characters belong to Marvel Comics**

**I own nothing**

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><p><strong>{Part 1}<strong>

The rim of the cup touched delicately over her lips. Sitting rigidly at a center table outside a riverfront cafe, Natasha Romanoff kept a sharp focus of temperate grayish-green eyes steady on the amber glow radiating from the metal lampposts as reflections of light became captured in the rippling dark water in front of her. She felt the words etched over the cracks of her heart probing against her traitorous lips.

She tasted the venom of her lethal nature draining further down her throat. Blinking, she wrenched her eyes away; she placed the coffee on, and intently peered at tiny droplets of rain gathering on the red petals of a rose in front of her vantage. Each petal was a different shade of red without imperfections. he darker hues enveloped over the rich crimsons, but in the center of the flower was untouched cluster of bright scarlet. She used the rose as a distraction to keep her fragile emotions locked tightly inside the darkness of her well-guarded soul.

She was unprepared to allow the semblance of the Black Widow to strip away; she was drowning in a pool of crimson, every morning she woke up finding herself washing her hands underneath the rushing cold water. Invisible sins strained over her fingertips, nightmares branded her with condemning wounds, and fear wrapped her in its grasp.

Drumming her shaky fingers over the edge of the mahogany table, she narrowed her head down, allowing iron-straight curtains of scarlet to drape over her ivory features. Her head pounded with torrent thoughts, her rib cage tightened and squeezed her heart until she felt a dull ache of pierce through her layers. With each pulse, the pain became invasive, untamed and numbing. She knew that if she seized the moment of freedom, stripped off every part of her and allowed the rain to wash it all away-she might finally have a chance to live without a dodging a bullet.

Taking a deep, long breath, Natasha regained her strength, and fumbled her hands over the rich linen tablecloth, and cringed lightly as a sudden cloud burst of rain soaked through her leather jacket, and penetrated into her skin. Slamming the door shut, she sloshed her heeled boots in the clusters of puddles gathered on the cobblestone, and raced to the bridge, strands of her long hair curled and water made her mascara run down her sharpened features were making her a soaked and warily mess.

Lowering her gaze to the water, she fought against the pained tears filling in her eyes, and she barely felt the cold water pelt over her exposed ivory skin. She vainly wiped the warm tears away. She refused to allow Steve Rogers to infiltrate her heart, the kiss they shared on the escalator was harmless, yes, and she admitted his lips were incredibly soft, and the taste of his mouth was intoxicating, but having a simple feeling of affection was a deadly weakness. If her enemies discovered she had a man in her impermanent life-they wouldn't rest until his blood spilled out of his lifeless body like red rain. But the questions that became engraved deep into her heart was could she survive without him? Was she the poisonous Black Widow who marked men as her prey, and killed them after their services were no longer of use to her? Would it become a grave risk to finally unveil her true self to Steve and start a fresh new life after erasing the mistakes of her past and rectifying old sins? She was thinking too much about his powerful deep blue eyes which shimmered like crystal, his smooth lips, and his rippling muscles that felt like iron against her fingers. He had become more than a partner, and a friend to her, but she refused to admit it openly to him, and dared herself to turn and run away.

Natasha moved closer to the stone bridge, and pressed her rigid frame against the hollow groves of alabaster brick, folding her arms protectively over her ample breasts. She stood in the sheets of rain, allowing herself to become drenched to the bone, and frozen in her thoughts. A sound of splashing, lulled her eyes to shift down the ramp of the archway, and she became acutely aware of a tall, muscular figure pounding his feet against the cobblestone, advancing closer to her. With any hesitation, she moved her hand idly down the curve of her hip, and gripped her fingers against the leather strap holding her handgun. She had never let her guard down.

"Stay, were you are?" she warned, her throat thickening with lumps of invasive dread. Her face withered into a desperate look and her heart thudded against her rib cage. She had become frozen and her soul felt like it was slowly becoming unhinged. She gritted harder, hard enough to make her gums tingled with numbness and it made her teeth hurt. Her emotions were being compromised by a strange illusion of a man she thought that she would never see again.

"Steve," she breathed out in a soft, broken voice that seemed unnatural for her to vocalize.

Steve halted in his paces at the curb, his broad chest heaved and gray sweater was drenched. She watched him instantly ease the hood off his hood and stared at her with his fixated blue eyes—gleaming like crystal against the muted streetlight. "Nat?" he said mutely against the rain, his golden locks ruffled with a few sloppy tendrils hooded over his brow—no man could ever look so enticing in the rain—the thinning material of the sweater revealed the deep indention of his broad pectorals and brawny muscles of his chiseled torso, and his jeans hung low off his hips. Thankfully, he was too interested in her presence that he didn't notice her eyes raking over his tall frame. He looked sternly at her soaked red hair sticking over her sharp jaw line. "How long have you been in Rome?" He asked, with sheepish tone, hiding his true words from her. He moved gingerly to the bridge, and sat down casually on the smooth arched stone. Tension was piling over his muscles as he hesitated for a long moment. He lifted his head and peered at her with unyielding, honest eyes. "I'm taking a break from everything." he explained, reining himself to unveil the truth to her.

"My only priority is finding Bucky Barnes. I had a chance to read the KGB file." He stiffened his lips into a firm grimace, and heaved out a deep, pained sigh. "After everything we've been through in these last months-I needed to get away from everything. I'm not here on any mission assigned by Nick Fury. I'm here trying to build a life that has been waiting for me for seventy years."

"So you're running away?" She softly replied, observing his passive expression. He was always open with his emotions. "Isn't that the honest truth, Steve?" She pressed her lips together, and lowered her head. "I thought escaping from life back in Washington would finally stop me from looking back." She shrugged lightly, "I guess my past will always be chasing like the demons in the dark."

Steve released a long, deep breath he'd been holding. He felt the distress wavering off of her, and saw the pain locked in her gaze. He advanced closer, his shadow cloaking over her lithe body as he reached out for her. She tried to ignore the nasty feeling welling further in her wounded soul; she tried to avert her eyes from his clear blue chasms that always looked beyond the masks she wore. Her heart ached in her chest and blood run cold in her veins. She couldn't let herself to become disarmed, most importantly she didn't want to hurt him. He saw everything in her grayish-teal eyes, and he didn't condemn nor dismiss her from his heart. "You know if you stand up to everything that drags you down, you can stop running, Nat."

Natasha felt like a muzzle of gun had pressed into her ribs. She pivoted on her heels and tried to look into the direction. "I run to survive another day, Steve." she replied with edge in her husk voice. "I also run to protect the people I care about. I'm sorry that you had to come this way to hear that, but that's the truth." She sucked in a harsh breath. She hesitated for a moment, watching his blue eyes narrow as the shadows of the night overtook his chiseled face. The, she swallowed and dropped her head low, she knew that he healed faster from the serum's regenerative abilities, but the outside. Inside, he was a wounded and lost soldier, a good man that carried the pain of others, and never allowed himself to reveal his own.

She wished that she could mend his interior wounds, but she wasn't a woman to hold on the love, compassion and honestly. She was the Black Widow, a deadly assassin and spy that was generated in the Red Room. Her demons ripped out her soul, turned into a cold- blooded monster and covered every ounce of her humanity of red until she nearly drowned. If Steve fell in love with her, then he would become her weakness. She couldn't afford to exploit her real emotions, not when she was poison to his heart. She was evil. Her blood was lace with pure wickedness. Her disobedient heart was black as toxic ash.

"Natasha?" He spoke with a gentle voice; it was invasive to her ears.

She felt the red threads of her soul twist. Her bones became numb. "Every word I say to you is the honest truth, Rogers." She clasped her lips into a rigid line. "And if you don't believe that Steve, then you will have no reason to trust me."

"I do trust you, Nat." He clarified to her, his voice soft and unimposing. He placed his large hand on her bare shoulder, applying heat on the frigid skin. Natasha angled her head and looked at him, and his blue eyes stern and filled with sincerity. There was no doubt masking over his steady gaze. No hesitant or wariness, there was only his faith in her shining in the depth of cerulean. He needed to give her the honest truth welled deep within the layers of his heart. Instead, the only words that escaped from his watery lips were the voice of a soldier. "You're the only one I can trust." He forced a bite down hard on his tongue and tore his eyes away from her.

"Do you have any regrets about the people that you lost...The life that was stolen from you?"

He turned his blue eyes back to her, and creased his eyebrows with confusion masking over his gaze. His expression became guarded with shadows of guilt. "I try not to live in the past." He spoke with a hint of dismay in his low voice. "Even through a part of me wishes to go back."

"It must be nice to start a whole new life again." She responded disdainfully she looked at him with a ghost of smile and a short breath. She was trying to hide her emotions.

Steve's eyes darkened at her words. His commanding cheek bones flexed, as he narrowed his severe crystal blue eyes at her. "This isn't a new life, Natasha." His expression hardened, bitterness climbing up his throat. He shuddered a little. His eyes creased as he glowered at her, watching her face cloud with vast range of different emotions. She looked like she wanted to say many things, like she wanted to explain everything-past, present and future, and yet her voice remained locked, and her eyes focused on the shadows as if she was searching for another way out. "After everything Fury has done, I do not even know how to live. It feels like I'm a captive and someone else is controlling my body-I tried to move forward and rebuild a life by trying out different things that I wrote on my list-It doesn't feel real to me."

Natasha averted her eyes from him. "Well, in this world, Rogers. Nothing is real." She spoke with a nonchalant tone in her shady voice. She was trying to warn him. She knew that he was sinking further into the abyss of defeat. She found the lingering and shattered fragments of a semblance of pain welled in the depth of his eyes. "Did you love Agent Peggy Carter? You do not have to answer. Unless you feel comfortable talking about it, Steve."

He swallowed. His heart thudded to a halt in his chest and his eyes shimmered with grief. His hand unconsciously slipped into the pocket of his jeans, fingers rubbed over the tarnished pocket watch. "A part of me will always carry her close to my heart," he suddenly became distant, his restless ached for freedom. He felt captive in his youthful body, he wanted to grow old and share a life with someone he loved and cherished, but knew that he was meant for great things other than spending his days twirling around his beautiful wife and playing with his grandchildren. He was blessed to become an avenger, a guardian angel who shuffled down the streets, protecting lives and carrying his orders. There were times he wanted to take everything back, rewrite his own history and just live a simple life as good man. "Peggy moved on with the world and I was left behind to watch just playbacks of her memories."

Natasha stared at the swirling mixtures of emotions in his hardened blue eyes. Something seemed unnatural about his love to Agent Carter. She believed that love was impermanent; a weakness that butchered the soul, not an everlasting commitment in a gray shaded world. It was akin of dark sin, greedy taste of pleasure and destructive to the frailty of ones' heart. When she dared herself to stare deeper, beyond the veil obscuring over Steve's eyes she found something pure, noble, strong, valiant and rare. She found his heart-not a black jewel painted red, but a treasure that gleamed in the brightest light of his spirit. "Do you want to get some coffee?" she asked, twisting the subject before they dived into the red waters of past. "Unless you have something to do?"

Steve felt curled the edges of his pastel lips into vacant content smirk, laying his full attention on her. His steady, honest blue eyes made her heart skip a beat. "Are you asking me out on a date, Natasha?"

'Well, I'm not big fan of that kind of coffee." Steve responded, keeping his eyes steady on her. "Unless these places have something that fits my tastes, I'll buy your coffee and I'll get a green tea."

Natasha rolled her eyes, she was a master of her emotions, not allowing any of her fragile sentiments to become readable, but he was so naive that she couldn't help, but allow some less hardened feelings strip away. "What's wrong, afraid to take a risk with your health, Cap? I think your enhance super-soldier metabolism is safe, Rogers, even for one order of a fattening coffee." she lightly teased, giving him a roguish smirk.

Steve felt the flushing heat seep from the skin of his cheek, his expression softened. She'd discovered through various rescue missions of their partnership that he was easy to damn manipulate, and she knew how to appeal to his nobility, morals and self-righteousness. His sense of judgment between right and wrong was a different code than hers. She always looked for the bad in people, while he searched for the good.

He was symbol that all man wished they could be, a poster boy for freedom, hope and valor. His methods of protecting and ensuring the hope that all men carried were iron-clad, virtuously unwavering, and unnervingly humble. He would follow orders without complaining or doubting the risks. He carried them out, whether taking a few bullets in mid-section, crashing into a bus, or saving an innocent from an explosion. His soul was indestructible, but his heart was the prime weakness. He cared too much about the little things, the details that a lot of people raked away. "Nat, if you want to go and have a coffee. I'll buy it for you."

"Why do you always have to be such a hard ass, Rogers? You can add it to your growing list of things to try out—I'll gladly write it out for you." She coyly, twisted her lips into a shadowy grin. His hardened blue eyes were firmly locked on her; he wasn't moving and saying anything. "Alright," she breathed out a sigh of frustration. She nudged an elbow lightly into his chest. "You can buy me a strawberry mocha."

Steve gave her a curt of a nod, "I'm takin' that you already had this planned out. He murmured under his breath. "I'm guessing even before you left Washington."

"Maybe, I did." Natasha said, pivoting on her heels, and sauntering away from him. "Try to keep up." she called out, with a tiny dare edging up her throat. Steve shook his head, and then curved his lips into a lopsided smirk, and raced after her.


	2. Chapter 2

**{Part 2}**

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><p>Twenty minutes later, Natasha sat at a corner table in front of the window; her leather boots were high up the edge, as she carelessly slouched in her chair, and she rung out the access water in her curled hair, not caring about the mess of puddles gathering on the tile floor. She lifted an eyebrow into a perfect arch, watching Steve run his hand through his spike, drenched golden locks as he spoke with a friendly voice to a cashier placing his order, the teenager looked at him with wide eyes as she played with her blond, pink streaked pony tail.<p>

Smiling with amusement on her pale features, Natasha lifted her phone and took a quick shot of him, and then sent the photo to Sharon's mail box with a simple text. America's golden boy is at it again. She lowered her phone down, and lifted her grayish-green eyes; Steve towered over her with two milk shakes gripped in his hands, and napkins. Furrowing her eyebrows with a few baffled looks, she parted her lips, "Why the napkins, Rogers?" she asked with a curious voice, gesturing a hand to the neat pile of brown paper.

"It's always good to be prepared." Steve replied, his eyes drifting to her boots. "Nat, take your feet off the table. It's very impolite." He chastised, placing the tray down in front of her. She shot him with a piercing glare, and slipped her boots off the table while he handed her a chocolate milk shake and a straw. "They're out of a coffee you wanted. Sorry."

She smiled, "Rogers, no apologies. I don't mind strawberry. I'm guessing you ordered the same? Or were you to interest into that cashier? She's cute by the way."

Steve winced. "Nat, I'm old enough to be her great-grandfather. Besides I rather not take my chances with a young dame—sorry—I meant girl…" he stammered and paused, obviously lost from words, pulled out the chair across from her, dragging it loudly over the tile, and he then sat down. "I'm too busy for the date scene. I have a lot to deal with now that Bucky is back in my life. He is my main priority nowadays –I want to find Bucky before I take a girl on a date."

Sometimes she found it unnerving how he could shun himself from the world, and how disturbing it was for him to be so incapable to women. It was almost like he was blinded by the truth that he was very desirable, she figured he was blinded and stuck in the past, he never bothered to ask Sharon out –not even for a quick coffee. No. Instead, he spent his mornings jogging, reading case files of ex-HYDRA operatives, training new recruits, and mostly spending much of his days searching for his best friend, James Buchanan Barnes, well reading the files of the tortures he endured while under HYDRA's control. It irked her soul, knowing that Steve was living that someone who had a reset button build into them; he was nothing but earnest and sincere. He always displayed the qualities that women had come to find in a man.

This was Captain America, the golden boy from Brooklyn who acted like friendly neighbor, and devoted his time and life for the freedom and liberty of his country. He was more concerned by other people's lives that he kept his own dreams, goals and maybe even his desires sealed in a box. She just wanted to shake him, jostle his bones and wake him up from being oblivious and make him see the world around him, more clearly, then feeling hopeless, desolated and uncertain about himself in a black and white world where everything seemed impermanent, stolen and weary. Maybehe didn't want anyone and maybe he wanted to live his life like a mission, spend his days saving lives then living his own? Deep inside, beyond her layers, Natasha knew that he was lonely, depressed and hopelessly lost.

Everyone he loved and cared about were either buried six under, stuck in a nursing home or imprisoned in a body of a conditioned assassin. She refused to admit that she cared for him; maybe even a small part of her even loved that quirky, dorky and charming kid underneath the visage of Captain America. "Well, I hate to break it to you, but you're having one now, Steven."

He gave him a quirk of a warm smile, and then, his face went blank as he oblivious figured out what she meant. "This isn't my idea of a date." He said, acting all modest and took a sip of his milk shake. "Bucky and I used to do this a lot when we were kids. I would never treat a dame… wait…sorry.. I mean girl to a fast food place. I would take her out for a casual dinner, maybe see a movie, and then go dancing." He gazed deeply into her eyes, the color of her irises shifted into a soft tint that reminded him of temperate seawater. "That's my idea of a first date."

"Not bad, Rogers" Natasha said, slurping a large gulp. "Have you ever danced before with a woman?" she asked, curiosity irked her.

"Not really…" he answered, shifting his posture against the chair, he suddenly looked uncomfortable to answer her question. "I've asked a few girls out, but they were always interested in Bucky. Not me. I was left in the dark…No woman would ever want a skinny, pale and sick kid as a dance partner. They were always worried that I might have coughed on them, or that they would have stepped on me." He narrowed his eyes down, slacking the edges of his mouth into a small frown. "The truth is…I don't know how to dance." He looked ashamed, and suddenly became very disquiet.

Natasha reached out a hand over to him, brushing her fingers over his knuckles. "I can show you how to dance with a woman, Steve." She whispered, "You're my partner on missions so why can't I be your dance partner?" she insisted, encasing her hand fully over his large hand, and she watched his Adam's apple bob up and down. "Relax; I know how to dance very well." She smirked, "Just between you and me, I would have dance with the skinny Steve Rogers if he grabbed enough courage to ask me."

"Natasha," he began solely staring at intently her, searching in the depth of her beautiful almond shaped eyes, and he had refuse to deny that he was falling in love with her. Every fiber inside his body was burning like scorched live wire. His resilient heart thumped with a rapid protest against his ribs. Natasha looked directly at him, with a daring glint in her green eyes, and made his throat constrict. He swallowed thickly, and recollected his words. "It's not the asking part…it's the dancing." He rephrased his confession. "I only know how to swing dance."

Taking another sip, Natasha felt the corners of her lips slack up into a light smirk. "Some women like a bit old fashioned." Steve opened his mouth to protest his words, but instead he lowered his blue eyes, and slurped his milk shake, trying to avoid her searing stare, although he felt it buried into his skull. He wasn't trying to ignore her; he was ashamed to admit his feelings to her.

Sigh out a distressed breath of inward pain, Steve flicked his eyes down, "For as long as I can remember I wanted to live a good life. Settle down with a girl who accepted me for whom I am, not Captain America—but the real me beneath the strength and the serum." He paused lifting his head; his blue eyes gathered the light above them as he looked distant. "I guess it was just a dream for a kid from Brooklyn to hold on to." he said in a low whisper, allowing her to feel his soul with the gentle words ghosting over his lips.

"I thought I could throw myself back into the game, be the leader that every wants to believe in, and protect lives, but I'm not strong enough to carry the weight on my shoulders. I'm a wounded soldier, and I feel like I'm the one who needs saving." he admitted, feeling a dire coldness harbor in his soul.

"It's hard to save someone who doesn't believe in himself, Rogers," Natasha calmly said, keeping her grayish-green eyes locked intently on the grim veil of utter despair shrouding over his commanding features. She folded her arms over the edge of the table, and leaned in closer to him, a fraction of inch to inhale his strength, and then narrowed her eyes, and allowed her thoughts to fall into murky abyss. "When I asked you that question back at Sam's house, I wanted a full honest answer…Not just words. We both know that words can easily cover our lies."

"What do you want me to say, Nat?" Steve echoed back, his crystal blue eyes welled with confusion and lips fastened into a hardened grimace. He sighed, feeling his heart thud against his rib cage, jostling the bones into muscle. "I trust you with my life." He said, giving her a focus and sincere look. "That's my honesty talking…" he smirked lightly, reaching out a large hand, and caressed warmth over her knuckles. "Do you trust me?"

"Steve," Natasha whispered in response, her voice suddenly grew soft. "I'm not the kind of person you want watching your back. My life isn't complete…I have scars that never heal, and not much red that I feel like I'm drowning into it." She allowed her eyes to drift outside the window, focusing on a street lamp on the corner of a crosswalk. "Sometime I run to protect those I cared for…because they're my weakness." she confessed, her chest beginning to tighten with knots.

"We all have weaknesses, Natasha." Steve replied. His soft, fathomless stare of cobalt sparkling, with warm understanding, acceptance, and with trust. His long lashes lowered against his face as he sighed with lightness. His fingers stroked over her arm, and she met his stare with a questionable look. He pulled himself closer to her, never breaking eye contact, just focusing on her with his unyielding gaze. "Sometime weakness becomes our strength."

Natasha lowered her eyes, drawing out a silent and compressed breath. She dared herself to ask him. "What is your weakness, Rogers?" she pressed, feeling herself stiffen.

Steve leaned the width of his broad shoulders firm against the chair, his eyes gingerly dropped, and lips formed an empty smile. He regarded her with suddenly deaden blue eyes, and she saw his demons swirling in the light of his soul. She saw the pain shield against his heart. He was opening up to her, finally after all their missions, battles and terrors. He was finally becoming real man inside the vessel of superhuman strength. "Are you looking for an honest answer, Natasha?" he asked in a low pitch of whisper.

"I'm looking for a answer. Just one from the super-soldier." She said softly.

Steve released a low breath. Then, he nodded. "My weakness is losing a friend." He answered, giving her a warm, half smile. "A good friend who might be in the wrong kind of business, and looking for a way to get out of the dodge." Natasha remained silent, she found herself lost from words. He saw through her mask of emotions, and gently placed his large hand on her shoulder, fingers stroked over the leather. "Nothing could ever compare to that feeling of pain, Nat. No bullet, knife or broken bones." he kept his lips in a neutral line, and silently became distant with his thoughts. "I've lost a lot of good men die for nothing. I listened to their last words...I thought I was strong enough to endure everything on the battlefield, but when I saw lives fade in a blink in an eye, I knew that I wasn't invincible. Just a man in a uniform serving his country."

She looked uncertain with his words. "You didn't for nothing, Rogers. Remember that, and Zola's theory was wrong. He miscalculated one important thing…"

"What?" Steve asked, searching in her eyes.

"No technology, not matter how great, can sum up the human heart. A machine is inorganic. It can't feel, and has no conscience. HYDRA wanted to create machines, turning life into programs that obeyed their commands. Your friend, Barnes was a part of that…you broke his coding, and gave him back his humanity. "Steve narrowed a dismal gaze of blue, feeling a jab of pain circulate within him. Natasha kept her eyes steady, searing deeper, as he tried to mask it with a warm, straight smile. "Zola could have never calculated your emotions, Steve—that's why you are considered a prime threat to the organization."

"We'll always have enemies, Nat." Steve returned with a breath of an undertone. He fixed his eyes on her stomach, locking over the area where her scar was embedded into her ivory skin; the Winter Soldier—HYDRA'S asset shot her, allowed her to feel pain, numbness and make blood painted her skin red. Steve knew that she didn't want Bucky's apology -his best friend was a victim of inhuman tortures—Zola butchered his soul, twisted his mind and made him become as cold as winter's ice. "Sometimes a friend can become your worst enemy." He spoke with a shroud of nonchalance obscuring his face. "What Bucky had did to you back in Odessa, how much pain he caused you to have…I want to take the blame…?" He pressed his lips into a firm line of anguish.

Hearing those words, felt like a bullet entering through her heart with shuttering speed, Natasha instantly tore her eyes away, it was an involuntary moment; it had become a reaction of emotions, a forbidding glimpse back into her past, and she had to look away before the lingering pain that the Winter Soldier inserted burned through her again. She rifled in her thoughts, her jaw clenched and hands lightly balled into fists. Steve's expression reeked of indulgence, she leaned her head back, damp scarlet locks cascaded over her shoulders, and her hand absently touched her side.

"Why would you do that, Rogers?" she smoothly asked, creasing her eyebrows as resentment folded over her forehead. "Barnes had mission to complete. He carried it out. I understood those risks when I agreed on my mission." She shook her head, Steve's stare became hard and unmovable—he was cutting into her deep. "It doesn't matter that much to me anymore. I have no regrets, and I feel no hatred towards your friend. His mind became like scrambled eggs -he went through Hell."

Natasha gritted, releasing a sharp breath, and avoided to see the pain fracturing over Steve's chiseled features. He wasn't burying it. Frankly she didn't want him to. "Nat," he breathed, setting his jaw hard. "Listen to me…I'm taking the blame. It was my fault…I allowed him to suffer…I made him become the Winter Soldier." He declared out his confession. His deep blue eyes became soulful, and hardened with stinging heartache "I allowed HYDRA to butcher him and take away his silver wings. What kind of a friend does that to his wing man?" His breath became frantic. "It's because of my choices that I will never have the real James Barnes again."

There will always be a division between us." He screwed his eyelids shut, "I grieved for him for seventy years, Nat, under the ice, and I'm still grieving for him."

"Steve there is something you need to know. Fury never wanted to tell you…But I think you need to hear this…" she allowed her words to drift between them, and she swallowed. "The reason that you're here and not frozen in the ice…" Steve reopened his eyes, and gave her an enquiring look. "The device that found you was created by Howard Stark, the Winter Soldier had orders to remove it from SHIELD, and give it to HYDRA after the car explosion. The engineer that I saved was working for HYDRA, he finished the programming the device in a nuclear compound in Odessa- Barnes interfered, shot me, and took it. Within five days—Nick Fury found the machine in unsecured location, and used it to find you, Steve." She reached out a hand, and grasped his broad shoulder. "James Barnes codename the Winter Soldier always had your back…He gave us a chance to save you."

Steve lowered his eyes; tears began to fall steadily over his knife-edge cheekbones. "Good old, Buck." He said, a smile breaking over his grim frown. "He was always looking out for me…HYDRA didn't take everything away from him." He felt relived, for the first time in years. "That's why he didn't kill me…He knew me."

"I pulled a few strings for you Rogers; it was hard to find this…" She said, shuffling in her jacket's pocket, and removed over tarnished, metal dog tags. "Alexander Pierce kept these." She opened Steve's hand, and placed the chained necklace into his palm. "These belong to Barnes; I think there was a time when he remembered everything, not at least tired. Give them back to him. He deserves to know who he used to be…"

Steve nodded and curled his fingers over the dog tags, holding them into a tight clutch. "Thank you, Natasha."

"Save it Rogers." She curved the edges of her lips into a ghost of a smile. "I'm not the person who deserves a thank you. A certain and brazen thief needs to hear those words. But I think she'll just settle for…." She was staring once again in the depth of his crystal eyes, the blue irises filled with warm tears, and relief. Before she moved from her seat, Steve performed one of his daring acts of benevolent, and leaned in close enough, invaded her space, and pressed liquid heat on her pale cheek.

He smiled. His blue eyes softened, squinting at the corners as he took sight of her face, only a fraction of an inch to create perfect halves of symmetry between a man and woman. He blinked the fogginess out of his eyes, his vision becoming clear as his lashes swept over the smooth skin of his face. When he looked at her again, the world faded around him in a blur, and the freckles on his jaw lightened in against the streaks of hazy moonlight.

The rain had stopped, and the sky was opening into distant starlight. He leaned in closer, his hand touched, and enclosed over the back of her neck, her scarlet curls brushed over his knuckles. They were closer, hearts daring them to take a risk. Steve's pointed rubbed over her skin. He stared, unblinking, unwavering. Strawberry. The beautiful scent invaded his nostrils. It made him dizzy with a haze of desire, and clarity dissolved into something more confusing, dangerous, and much more consuming. Something he was admitting to her. He was in love with her.

'Natasha," he whispered a hush, serene voice against her lips, which shadowed over his own mouth. He swallowed a large gulp of air, "I don't want you to think of me has just a man out of a bottle…A science experiment of human perfection. I want you to see me has the real man underneath the stars and stripes. A good man."

"Just shut up and kiss me, Rogers."

"Yes madam." He smirked like a school boy at her imploring tone, tilted his head to an angle, and brushed liquid heat on her lips; and once he felt her lips move underneath his own, he kissed her long, and deep, and allowed her to taste his strength, worries, doubts and fears. He licked the plump curve of her upper lip, and softly caressed his tongue over hers. They intertwined, stealing the other's breath, and filling their lungs with warm air. Her hands framed his face; fingers dug into his sideburns, gripped his temples and slide over his neck. He kneaded her red locks with gentle fistfuls, and deepened the passion flowing within their bodies

She opened herself to him, fully, giving him everything her stone guarded heart could muster in those long moments when their lips spoke the words they wanted to say. He sucked her down, until his mouth became swollen, and stained with her lipstick, he tried to ease as his lips run over hers, and then he felt something-an abnormal sensation creeping in his scorched bones. Alarmed, he broke away, with a faint pop as they separated, and placed his hand on the side of her face.

When Natasha leaned back panting heavy coattails of breath, she noticed the lines of his discomfort on his face, and something else. His eyes had changed into a lighter hue of blue—almost like ice. Raising her eyebrow, she raked her feverish green eyes over his body, and discovered something unusual on his skin—red flushes of raw heat spread across his jaw and neck. Fire.

"Steve…" She whispered, out a strangled breath, gulping for air. "Let's get out of here."

He nodded while still in a daze from the empowering kiss they shared. "Where do you want to go?" he asked, gathering air in his lungs.

Natasha leaned in forward and pressed wet heat over the arch of his upper lip, "Anywhere, Rogers," her words buffeted over his feverish skin.

For once in his life, Steve had found himself lost from words; either that or he was too dumbfounded to answer back. Instead of opening his mouth, he left a chaste kiss at the corner of her mouth and whispered with a sure tone in his voice, "Lead the way, Romanova."

She smirked, pulling her chair away from the table, and dared him with a devilish glint in her eye, "Catch me if you can, Rogers."

Steve smiled and watched her bolt out the restaurant; he waited with the virtue of patience. He wanted to give her ahead start.

'Slow and steady, Rogers."


End file.
